Techniques

Make your bench indispensable. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the February 2004 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Christopher Schwarz has published numerous [...]

Thirst, not starvation, leads to weak glue joints. On my first day on the job as an apprentice cabinetmaker, my task was to glue together radiator panels for an office building. Two sticks of [...]

Turning tools come in many shapes. Here’s how to keep those shapes sharp. Many years ago, I was cooking with a friend who was home visiting his parents during a college break. He struggled with a [...]

Woodworking is sweet when everything fits right. Here are 10 ways to ensure your mortise-and-tenon, dado, dovetail, and edge joints close up tightly. 1. Cauls distribute pressure It’s not easy to [...]

This traditional joint ensures the only cup on your tabletop will have coffee in it. The breadboard end is a traditional device for preventing a broad panel such as a tabletop from cupping. It is [...]

Old chisels can be brought back to life using these simple steps. If ever there was a type of used hand tool that was a good candidate for restoration, it’s a chisel. Lots of good deals on old [...]

Cut completed boxes from a simple glue-up. If your shop is like mine, every horizontal surface collects stuff—the necessary minutiae of woodworking. It’s all good stuff, to be sure, but it can [...]

The biggest benefit: less sanding. Big Slice, Big Blade When you’re cutting the back off a big box, your best bet is to use a 1/2″ 4 TPI (Teeth Per Inch) hook-tooth blade, and guide the cut [...]

It’s surprisingly simple to make your own Stickley-style pulls. The simple lines and honest joinery of the Arts & Crafts period have always appealed to me. The fumed quartersawn white oak and [...]

Basic steps for beautiful joints. Dovetails. They get put on a pedestal as a sign of quality. And while not every project or furniture style warrants them, I enjoy sitting down, listening to an [...]

By hand or power? With a spring joint or not? One of the most important joints in woodworking is the edge joint. Without it, our projects would look like they had been built from narrow popsicle [...]

Like any table saw rip fence, mine needs occasional realignment to the blade. Because my miter gauge slots are aligned parallel to the blade, I just set my fence parallel to the right-hand slot. [...]